


Judgment

by SophieRipley



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: During Canon, Explicit Language, First line of defense, Friendship, Heart-to-Heart, Protection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 09:58:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8441269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieRipley/pseuds/SophieRipley
Summary: Officer Judy Hopps went and hurt Finnick's best friend, just like he knew she would, leaving Nick little more than an emotional wreck.  Then, the rabbit comes back to Zootopia after a leave of absence begging Finnick to tell her where Nick was.
This is what happens next.





	

The press conference was played live on television.  Nick had made it very clear that he wouldn’t be speaking, hadn’t “officially” been involved at all, but his new favorite mammal would be going over the case, answering questions.  Finnick, who didn’t watch television as a rule, went to a shop early to catch the footage.  He hadn’t told Nick he’d be doing so, but he wanted to see if his hunch about the rabbit was correct.

And it was.

The little bitch threw Nick under the bus.  Sorry, calling her a bitch was an insult to all the fine upstanding females out there.  She was a beast of a mammal, and Finnick knew it.  So had Nick, at first.  They’d spoken at great lengths after their first meeting about how patronizing she was, how obvious her bigotry was.  Why would she carry fox repellant, after all, if she were fair-minded toward foxes?  But then only a few days later Nick sent Finnick messages telling him about how great she was, how she understood him, how she was encouraging him.

Now look at him.  Nick sulked in the back of Finnick’s van like a two year-old, had been doing so for days.  He hadn’t taken part in any jobs or hustles since he’d met the cop, and Finnick was getting annoyed.  So when he returned from getting lunch—which Nick wouldn’t eat—Finn slammed the door behind him and flung the bag of burritos at Nick.

“What the hell, Finn,” complained Nick, setting the bag aside.

“Get out of my van,” snarled Finn.  “You’ve sat there starving yourself and sulking like a kicked puppy for three days, Nick. The prick threw you under the bus, just like I said she would.  Get over it, or get out.”

Nick stared across at him, offended, his mouth hanging open.

“Don’t give me that look,” said Finn at a more tolerable volume.  He sat heavily across from Nick in the back of the van.  “You don’t have enough money saved up to let this go on forever.  You need to take some jobs.  And you need to fuckin’ eat, because I’m getting tired of hearing that gut yell at me every time you move.”

Nick sighed, rested his face in his paws.  “Finn…”  He sighed.  “I thought she understood me.  I thought she believed in me.  I thought…I loved her.”

Finn scoffed.  “You knew her for four days, three of which she treated you like a criminal.”

“Sure,” said Nick.  “But she _got_ me, Finn.  She liked me, too.  I know she did.  Something just…clicked.  I told her about the Junior Ranger Scouts.  She _understood_.”

Finnick frowned at Nick.  He’d never told anyone about that.  Nobody but his mother and Finnick himself. 

“You trusted the wrong person, Nick.  Hopps was not the good mammal she pretended to be.  She’s just like everyone else.  Hates us just like everyone else.”

“She asked me to join the ZPD.”  Nick was still defending her, as angry as he was.

“So did those kids at the Junior Ranger Scouts,” snapped Finnick.  “You saw how that turned out.”

Nick shook his head.  “…maybe you’re right, Finn.  I should never have started trusting her.”  He got up and started to climb out.

“Set something up, Nick,” said Finnick.  “We need to make some money.  And get rid of that _damned carrot pen!_ ”

They’d gotten back to hustling, but Nick wasn’t as good.  He wasn’t as quick, or as energetic.  Finnick quickly realized that he’d underestimated how badly his friend had been hurt.  He acted nothing short of broken-hearted, and the longer it went on the more pissed off Finnick became.  Not at Nick anymore, but at Hopps.

And then came the day someone knocked on his van.  He’d been beaten up before, so he grabbed his bat and slung the door open, shouting “ _Who is it?!_ ”  It wasn’t a larger animal as he’d feared and assumed, and when he looked down his glare fell into surprise.  His whole body relaxed a little.

It was Hopps.  She wasn’t in uniform (hadn’t he heard something about her taking a leave of absence or something?) and she looked tired and anxious.

“I need to find Nick,” she pleaded, putting her paws together.  “Please.”

Finnick glowered at her and lightly poked her in the chest with the baseball bat.  “You got a lot of nerve, rabbit,” he said softly, in a menacing tone.  He knew where Nick was—of course he did—but he couldn’t tell her.  Not yet.

Her face fell, her ears flat against the back of her head.  “Please.  I need his help.  I know I screwed up, I know he was mad at me, but I need to find him.”

“You think you pissed him off?”  Finnick stared at Hopps incredulously. 

“Well…didn’t I?”  That confused expression made Finnick scowl again.  “The way he stormed off….”

Finnick retreated into his van.  “Get in here.”

“I don’t have time for this,” started Hopps, but she trailed off when Finnick glared at her.  She climbed into the back of the van and looked around.  It was furnished like a tiny apartment, which suited Finnick just fine.  He lived in his van not because he couldn’t afford an apartment but because the van didn’t make him feel small.

He pointed to Nick’s beanbag chair.  “Sit.”  The rabbit hesitated, but eased down into the soft bag.  Finnick had to admit, the rabbit was cute.  Even considering she was a rabbit.  Finn was absolutely straight, thank you very much; that is, he was only attracted to females of his own species.  But he was perfectly capable of recognizing beauty in other species, and so he could see why his friend had been so smitten with her.   Her eyes were very nice, and her fur looked quite soft.

Finnick sat on his camping stool and stared across at the bunny for a moment.  “I saw the press conference,” said Finnick.  “On TV.  Nick was so excited about finishing that case with you, and was wanting to see you get recognized for your ‘good work’.  What. The fuck.  _Happened_.”

She had the grace to look ashamed, and squeezed her eyes shut.

“I answered questions, that’s what happened,” said Hopps.  “I told the facts of the case.”  Of course she continued to defend herself.  Not off to a good start, this meeting. 

“You did a lot more than that, rabbit.”

“…I screwed up, okay?  I already _said_ that.”  Her voice got a little heated, and Finnick detected a hint of remorse.  “I just…I should never have been put in front of all those reporters, I wasn’t prepared for it.  I should have never answered those questions.  Predators are being hurt because of me.  Losing their livelihoods.”  At least she understood what that meant to everyone _else_.  Pity Nick’s struggle didn’t occur to her.

“…not to mention what I did to Nick,” she whispered to the floor of the van.  Oh…well, apparently she did realize Nick was affected.  “I keep seeing how crushed Nick looked when I went to him after the press conference.  The things I said were so insensitive and they hurt him so bad, and then he got mad at me.  He lunged at me, and…all I could see was Gideon lashing out at me.  I was scared, and my training kicked in.  I didn’t mean to react like I did, but that hurt Nick so bad….”

Finnick didn’t know who Gideon was or how that was relevant but it was clear to him that this asshole bunny was perhaps…not quite as much an asshole as he thought.  At the very least, she hadn’t _intended_ to be a bigoted jerk.

Finnick also couldn’t help but notice the genuine tears in Hopps’s eyes, the sorrow over what she’d done, the humility of it.  He sat quietly for a long moment as she stared at the carpet between them. 

“He told me something,” she said softly.  “Something that happened to him when he was a kit.”

“The Junior Ranger Scouts,” replied Finn.  She looked up in surprise.  “I take it he didn’t tell you it was me who found him crying in the street afterward.”

Judy shook her head, frowning in confusion.

“Sure,” said Finn, his tone even.  “I’m walking the street, it’s after dark so I’ve been awake for a few hours.  Looking for breakfast, you know?  And I hear this _sobbing_.  I have never liked children, you know.  Even back then.  I was in my early twenties, I couldn’t handle _kids_.  But it was my neighborhood at the time and if some new kit had moved in and thought it was funny to go crying in the street, well.  I was going to have some serious _words_ with the parents. 

“I recognized him.  Seen him around once or twice with his mom.  No dad I knew of, but the mom was a popular waitress at a local diner.  He was wearing this stupid uniform, and when I found the muzzle….  I was down to my last twenty bucks, but I bought him breakfast.  Told him how to find me if he ever needed me, walked him home.

“I didn’t hear from him for another four years.  Saw him around, talked a bit if we passed in the street, but he never came for my help and I never bothered him.  But then he came to me one night, he was twelve I think.  Told me his mom died, had no other family.  I took care of him, Hopps.  I did.  By myself.  I practically raised that tod, so he’s like a son to me.  He’s the best friend I’ve ever had, and he’s the closest thing to a kid I’ll ever be able to claim.  I tell you that so that you’ll understand me when I say that I take his safety _very. Goddamn. Seriously.”_

The rabbit couldn’t have looked more pitiful if she tried.  Finnick was never what you might call an empathetic individual, but even still he could feel the sorrow coming off her.  It was palpable and utterly genuine.

“He didn’t say anything about you,” she said.  “Probably didn’t think it was his place to tell me anything I could use against you.  He did tell me about his ordeal, though.  Opened up to me.  For the first time since we met he was working _with_ me instead of against me, and there was this definite connection.  Everything changed.  I had been struggling to avoid finding him charming and funny, and suddenly he wasn’t my enemy anymore.  I knew I didn’t have to fear him.

“But then that stupid press conference happened.  Please believe me, I never wanted to hurt him.  I offered him an application to the police academy, because I wanted to continue working with him.  It didn’t matter to me what he was, it just mattered that he could be working with me.  I wanted him by my side.  I didn’t understand.  I didn’t realize how backward I still was until he confronted me.  And I’ve spent the past two and a half months wishing someone would run me over or bury me alive or something, anything.  If I had been told jumping off the canopy level of the rainforest district would make things right, I would have.”

“Because of the predators you slandered,” guessed Finnick.  He suspected he was wrong, but needed to be sure.

“No!” exclaimed Judy.  “No, I wanted to make things right for them _too_ …but Nick was the only one on my mind.  Seeing him walk away like he did…hating me…it was like I lost my family.  It hamstrung me.  I couldn’t work properly, I was….”

“Mourning,” supplied Finnick quietly.

“…yes.”

“Nick wasn’t angry at you, Hopps,” said Finn.  “He was hurt.  Offended.  Devastated.  He’s spent the last three months _mourning_ as well.  Hating you.”

She closed her eyes.  The simple action spoke of the depth of her sorrow, and Finn could see it in her face.  If Nick hated her, truly hated her, she was left with nothing.  It had consumed her, just in the short time she’d known him.  Her feelings for him were clear to Finnick, even if she didn’t know it herself.

“He learned to hate you.  But he might still help you.  He’s a better mammal than I’ll ever be.”  Finn stood, went to the back doors of his van, and slung them open.  “There’s a bridge over a dried streambed outside of town, toward the end of Banyon Street in Savannah Central.  Near the old Wild Times building.  You can find him there.”

“Thank you so much,” said the bunny.  Finn just stared at her.  “I won’t hurt him anymore, I promise.  I just…I wish he could have liked me before he started hating me.  You know?”  She rushed off without waiting for him to respond, not that he would have anyway. 

Finnick stared in the direction the rabbit’s pickup drove for a long moment and sighed. 

He muttered to the long-gone rabbit, hoping some small part of her would understand.  “Kid, hatred is too strong an emotion to waste on someone you don’t like.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is not nearly as good as I wanted it to be, but it'll do. It's based on a tumblr post by Zootopepo, linked below. 
> 
> http://zootopepo.tumblr.com/post/152452646764/greywitchvixen-zootopepo-zootopepo-now


End file.
